Countdown

You could spend your final year of your PhD counting down the days: Another day gone until I have to submit, another day gone until my viva…

I knew PhD candidates who stressed and obsessed that time was running out. It’s easy to see with hindsight and perspective that stress didn’t do much to help them. Of course, if you are stressed, it’s not enough to say “don’t do that,” it’s not something that you can just turn off.

Perhaps you can try to steer things a little though. You can wake up each day and say, “What am I going to do today that will help me? What can I can do that will get me one step closer to finishing my PhD?”

Then you can mark that day off with a different thought: Another day closer to done, another day closer to complete…